A lingering shadow
by Baluar
Summary: A two shot about what happened during the last battle of the Mandalorian Wars and later at the Jedi Council during the Exile's trial, for dead as it may be, Malachor's shadow lingers. (Yeah, I'm bad at naming things and doing summaries.)
1. Chapter 1

_In a ship orbiting high above Malachor V_

As Bao-Dur walked through the bridge, he gazed upon his general, and once again wondered how she came to be there.

Many times had he repeated himself that Jedi became Generals in times of war; many times he told himself that the woman whom he was looking at had proven herself repeatedly to the military genius who led the opposition against the Mandalorians - Revan himself. Many times had he said that she was a Jedi, that she'd been trained from childhood and had a connection to a mysterious Force that granted her preternatural abilities. Yet in his mind, there was always one idea: she was basically a girl.

Yes, his superior as she might be, she was not - could not be above eighteen years old. How could someone be forced to lead so many at such an early age? How come someone could even think about making her lead such a crucial war effort? Malachor V was heralded to bethe turning point of the conflict against the Mandalorians, thanks to the Mass Shadow Generator he himself had devised and helped to create, and she was there to oversee its use, to see precisely when they had to use it. Her shouldering this responsibility was nothing short of madness, and yet there she stood, silently, her eyes closed, facing the distant planet and the warring ships above it. Completely ignorant of his arrival, or so he thought.

-You have come, Bao-Dur.

-Yes, General. - He was mildly surprised, but this was not out of a Jedi's capabilities.

With a sigh, she turned and faced him, her eyes looking at his for a second before diverting back to the ship's window.

-The battle is going as predicted. Soon it'll be time to activate the weapon. - Her voice seemed to hide a feeling of uncertainty, despite her reassuring words. Was she reassuring him... or reassuring herself? - Is everything ready?

-Of course. The weapon is ready to be fired at a moment's notice.

The plan was tricky. Revan had masterminded it himself - they would gather any forces they had would use them to bait the Mandalorians to where they could be destroyed in one fell swoop. The death of every single person there was assured. Every Jedi, every soldier, every ship, all lost to the weapon he had created. A sacrifice for the greater good, to stop the butchery that the Mandalorians brought about, Bao-Dur had told himself. Repeatedly. None of those men and women knew what they were getting into. They thought it was just another battle, that Malachor V was a strategic location that had to be taken. Bao-Dur smiled sadly at the irony, for the planet was indeed a strategic location, one that they would use to defeat the Mandalorians once and for all - but for all the wrong reasons.

-Good. Their ships are closing in to the planet. It won't be long before the time comes.

With a wordless agreement, both the Zabrak and the Jedi turned to watch the space battle. Silence followed. Bao-Dur was watching when he noticed that she'd turned to face him. He returned the gesture, and after what felt like forever she simply nodded. He understood the signal, and fired the weapon. Quickly, he turned around to see if it worked.

It worked perfectly.

In a moment's notice, both fleets were sucked in by a gravity vortex that made the planet below completely impossible to see from their perspective. Every ship was being drawn towards a singular point in spaced, where he knew they would be crushed and destroyed completely. Anyone who was close, Mandalorian or not, was doomed to that cruel fate. The planet was once again visible after a few seconds, fractured to its very core, victim to the Mass Shadow Generator of his creation.

* * *

 _The General's perspective_

Death. Death death death _death death death **death death**_.

Death was anywhere and everywhere. She could feel thousands of lives crushed and extinguished in but a moment. Continuously. There was nothing to drown that insufferable feeling. It was death all around her, everywhere, for what seemed like an eternity. It did not stop, it did not relent, the feeling of death and anguish and pain and horror and _betrayal_ of the soldiers of the Republic who'd realized that they were utterly lost, that there was no chance of fleeing. There was no fleeing the sense of despair of the Mandalorians as they realized they'd been tricked and would die an honorless death, crushed alongside those who'd been their enemies.

She did not know how she still stood, how she still existed. It felt as though each and every dead pulled at her, tried to destroy her, blamed her and her alone for their fate. She felt the lost tug at her very being, and the pain was all too real.

She felt each and every death as if it was her own. She felt herself die a thousand times, and a thousand times after that, and a thousand times then. It would not stop, that feeling of the void of death encrouching her, devouring her and spitting her out to repeat the process once. And again. And again. And a million times afterwards.

It was the pain of a planet's death, all upon her shoulders. The feeling of countless lives, snuffed out. All together. She had never seriously thought about the magnitude of what she'd cause, the magnitude of the indiscriminate slaughter brought about by her command. The blood of each life lost was on her hands, in her mind. It was everywhere.

* * *

 _Bao-Dur's perspective_

Victory had been achieved. The Mandalorians had been finally brought low at a terrible price, but the end was over at long last.

Yet at what cost? Every living thing and every ship in their fleet completely and utterly lost, irreparably sacrificed. A planet torn apart by his very own hand, thousands of lives lost alongside it.

He turned to look at her again. She looked at him as though she was looking at something very distant, her eyes void of any appearance of life. She nodded once again and left the room, leaving him alone.

There were no words for what either of them were going through.


	2. Chapter 2

_Coruscant, Jedi Council_

She was to go to her trial in that cursed chamber. How could they judge her? They, who had not been there, who had not went through what she went. It was outrageous. And yet all she felt was the consequences of her actions. She knew that this trial was naught but formality. It was each and every dead person at Malachor who judged her and found her guilty. Every death had been a stab in the heart, and very often she would find herself losing herself in the thought, in the pain that it all caused. It was still present within her, just like that fateful day. She hardly believed there was a single moment where the pain wasn't present. It was always there. But now not alone anymore.

She entered the room, the pain present within her as always, but now accompanied by the rage at the idea that someone who hadn't felt that very pain would think of judging her. They were there - Kavar, Atris, Zez-Kai Ell, Lamar and Vash. A pitiful shade of what the Council once was. Most every seat was empty, and the room felt lifeless. The Jedi were being driven to extinction, hunted by the returned Revan, and yet they sat there, judging her. With a dark thought, she realized that it was their way of doing things - just sitting around and doing nothing. They would not endanger themselves, now would they?

The Jedi council was supposed to be a place of wisdom, a place where the most staunch protectors of the Republic would arrive to decisions about how to react to the threats that existed in the galaxy. Yet in its current state, the council could well have been composed of a bunch of gizka and it would not really change all that much.

-Do you know why we have called you here? - Vrook asked. The anger rose within her: formality though it could be, she was not about to respect him. He had never had too much patience with her, and the feeling was all too mutual.

-I came here because I chose to, not because you summoned me. - The words left her mouth without her thinking them, yet they were exactly what she would have said had she thought about it.

-As Revan summoned you, so have you come full circle to return to the Jedi. - Came the reply of Kavar. She always had respected him and considered him a friend, and damning though his words might have been (she was too immersed on herself to truly think of what she was being told), she kept silence. Zez-Kai Ell continued.

-Why did you defy us? The Jedi are guardians of the peace and have been for centuries. This call to war undermines all that we have worked for.

He dared question her. He dared do what she'd done to herself a thousand times before, for a different reason. She had convinced herself that she was right, that everything she'd done, from the moment she joined Revan to the command of activating the Mass Shadow Generator, even the massacre she'd brought about, was the right thing to do. She'd told herself repeatedly that the Mandalorians would have crushed the Republic had they not taken that crucial decision. She could not have lived with the thought that she might have been wrong, that there might have been other solution. It would have broken her. She knew it, and it did not diminish the pain, but it kept her going. Somehow.

-Is Revan your master now? - Atris spoke. - Or is it the horror you brought about at Malachor that has caused you to see the truth at last?

She had reached her point. Atris dared say the words. It was the limit. She would stand by that insult no more.

-You were not at Malachor. - Came her swift reply, venomous enough to kill a terentatek. - And you will never understand.

-You refuse to hear us. - Zez-Kai Ell spoke again. - You have shut us out, and so have shut yourself to the rest to the galaxy.

Like there was a point in listening to them. They pledged for peace and reasoning, for a deeper analysis of the situation, for sitting down and thinking, both in the past while the Outer Rim burned both figuratively and in some cases quite literally, and then while Revan was killing them all.

"I'm honestly surprised they're doing so badly at the war." She thought. "With their line of thinking, probably a single of the turned padawans could cleave them all in half while they shout ' _We have to think about this_!' and ' _We should debate on what to do with this one_!'." It was Vash who spoke next.

-You are exiled, and you are Jedi no longer.

Like there was a point in it anymore.

-There is one last thing. - Vrook interjected suddenly. - Your lightsaber. Surrender it to us.

That was overstepping. The lightsaber she'd built - her very own green blade - was hers and hers alone. None could claim it but her, and yet there was Vrook, claiming that that was not the case any longer. How dared he? Out of all the council, him. It stoked the fire within her, to the point that for a second she actually forgot about Malachor. For a second, she was naught but pure rage and disgust to that horrifying worm of a Jedi Master. She could have refused. She probably would've, but suddenly an idea went through her head.

"So you want my lightsaber? Very well, you shall have it."

She walked to the central stone and stabbed her lightsaber in it firmly before leaving it there and walking off in a hurry, not wanting to listen to any further ramblings from the deluded fools who were convinced they had the moral high ground.

To her, there was no moral high ground anymore. There was only the ever-present shadow of Malachor, ominously standing above her.


End file.
